As a young man, Al was a skilled artist, with a wife and two fine sons. One night, his older son developed a serious stomachache. Neither Al nor his wife took it very seriously. But the boy died suddenly that night.

The death could have been avoided if he had only realized the seriousness of the situation, so Al always felt he was guilty(内疚). To make matters worse, his wife left him a short time later, leaving him alone with his six-year-old younger son. The hurt and pain were more than Al could stand, and he turned to alcohol(酒精) for help.

Al began to lose everything he had—his land, house, etc. Finally Al died alone in a small bar. Hearing of Al’s death, I thought, “What a complete failure(失败)!”

I knew Al’s now adult son, Ernie. He is one of the kindest, most caring, most loving men I have ever known. I saw the love between Ernie and his children, thinking that kindness and caring had to come from somewhere.

I hadn’t heard Ernie talked much about his father. One day, I worked up my courage to ask him what on earth his father had done so that he became such a special person. Ernie said quietly, “As a child until I left home at 18, Al came into my room every night, gave me a kiss and said, ‘Love you, son.’”

Tears came to my eyes as I realized that I had been a fool to tell Al as a failure. He had been a kind loving father, and left behind his best love.

根据短文内容判断正(T)误(F)。

1.At first there were four people in Al’s family.

2.Al always felt he was guilty because his wife left him.

3.Al sold everything he had—his land, house to drink alcohol.

4.Ernie was a complete failure just like his father.

5.At the end of the story, the writer thought Al was a loving father.

A linguist, who studies languages, is always listening, never off-duty. I invited a group of friends to my house, telling them that I was going to record their speech. I said I was interested in their regional accents (地方口音), and it would take only a few minutes to record it. Afterwards, one evening, three people came to my house and were shown into my sitting-room. In front of each chair there was a microphone (麦克风) at head height, connected to a recorder in the middle of the floor. They sat down rather nervously. I explained that all I wanted was for them to count from one to twenty, then we could relax and have a drink.

I turned on the recorder and they each in turn counted from one to twenty in their best accents. When it was over, I turned the recorder off and brought round the drinks. The rest of the evening was spent in complete relaxation. I talked and joked with them freely and left them for a telephone call which lasted some time.

You know, of course, the microphones were not connected to the recorder in the middle of the room at all but to another one in the bedroom. My friends, having seen the recorder before them turned off, paid no more attention to the microphones a few inches from their mouths, thus giving excellent sound quality (质量). It meant that I was able to get a piece of natural talk.

I should add, perhaps, that I did tell my friends what had happened to them after the recording was over, and asked them whether it should be destroyed. None of them wanted to – but for some years after that, it always seemed that when it came to buying drinks, I paid for them. Linguistic research can be a very expensive business.

1.The underlined word "linguist" in Paragraph 1 probably means " ".

A.people who learn to speak languages.

B.people who do research on languages.

C.people who speak languages.

D.people who develop languages.

2.The recording which the writer was able to make was .

A. natural. B. beautiful

C. unclear. D. nervous.

3.When the writer told his friends what he had done, they .

A. wanted him to destroy records

B. didn't seem to mind much

C.seemed to have no response (反应)

D. made him buy them more drinks

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